FTB: Another week of Coyotes drama

Good morning Toronto Maple Leafs fans! And I hope you're doing as best you can, Coyotes fans.

We are all but certain the Coyotes will be moving to Salt Lake City. The potential owner has been soliciting names from fans. Reports have the team travelling to Salt Lake to view facilities and the city.

Unofficial announcements, like from Elliott Friedman on Hockey Night in Canada, has the final sale being the NHL buys the Coyotes, sells them to Salt Lake, but hold a potential expansion slot in Arizona for the current owners.

Meruelo agreed to sell the team after he secured a contractual right to reactivate the franchise within 5 years of the date of the agreement and trigger an expansion draft if an arena is built- this would require him to pay back the $1 billion that he is getting from the sale.
— John Gambadoro (@Gambo987) April 13, 2024

If they build an arena, have a permanent home, then okay, they reimburse the NHL and get another team. And hopefully pay their bills this time.

Only hockey operations will move to Utah. Business staff will not. And will find out about it through a tweet.

The hockey operations side of the Arizona Coyotes (players, coaches, trainers) will be moving to Utah not the business side.
— John Gambadoro (@Gambo987) April 13, 2024

What will they do? Well, the Tucson Roadrunners, the Coyotes (and assumed Utah?) AHL affiliate will move to Mullet Arena.

Alex Meruelo will maintain ownership of the Tucson Roadrunners of the AHL, which plays its games in Tucson, and they will negotiate to be an affiliate of the new team in Utah. They will explore options of having the Roadrunners play at Mullett Arena
— John Gambadoro (@Gambo987) April 13, 2024

The reports are also they will continue to support minor hockey in the area, like the successful Junior Coyotes teams, and hopefully produce more state players for the Maple Leafs.

We should hear about the finalization of the sale by the end of this week. So let's dig in for more rumours and nonsense from this incredibly unstable franchise.

In other news....

The Leafs lost in OT, but Matthews scored and is one away from 70.